Rootedness
We build with what the territory produces: its earth, its timber, its craftspeople, its know-how.
The studio
Kodi Design
An architecture, interior design and decoration studio based in Niger, working across the continent.
Our story
Kodi Design was born in Niamey in 2014 out of a simple, slightly irritating observation: across West Africa, buildings were being designed for other climates, with materials from elsewhere, and then air conditioning was installed to correct the mistake.
We started small — an extension, two villas, a retail unit — with one rule: every project had to prove something. On the first villa it was thermal inertia. On the first hotel, the courtyard as a cooling device. On the first office building, the ventilated double skin.
Twelve years later the studio brings together around fifteen people, an in-house materials lab, and a network of partner workshops in five countries. Our work is published, discussed and sometimes challenged. That is exactly what we wanted.
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Our mission
Make contemporary architecture obvious here.
Our mission fits in one sentence: to prove, project after project, that architecture rooted in its territory performs better, costs less and looks better than imported architecture.
That means working on three fronts at once: design, supply chain (training craftspeople, structuring procurement) and culture (documenting, publishing, convincing clients).
Our values
Four non-negotiable principles
Restraint
The cheapest comfort is the one obtained without machinery. Design comes before equipment.
Transparency
Budgets, schedules, technical limits: we say what we know and what we do not.
Transmission
Every site trains. Every study is published. Knowledge circulates or it dies.
Our approach to contemporary African design
What we do
Architecture
Full design, from brief to building permit, with systematic attention to climate, orientation and locally available materials.
Interior design
Layouts, material palettes, custom furniture and light staging. Every room is designed as a sequence.
Decoration & styling
Curation of objects, textiles and artworks, with an assumed preference for contemporary African creation.
Site supervision
Execution follow-up, contractor coordination, quality control and schedule management. A drawing is only worth what gets built.
Research & materials
Stabilised-earth testing, instrumentation of completed buildings, open publication of results. Our in-house lab feeds every project.
Advisory & programming
Feasibility studies, brief definition, budget estimates and support for both public and private clients.
Our team
The people behind the drawings
Aïcha Kodi
Founding architectTrained at ENSA and EPFL, Aïcha founded Kodi Design in 2014 with one intuition: the Sahel does not need to import its architecture. She leads design on every project.
Moussa Adamou
Head of constructionTwenty-two years on site, from single homes to public facilities. Moussa is the guarantee that a drawing becomes a building, on time and on budget.
Nafissa Diallo
Head of interior designA former stylist, she brings an editorial eye and an obsession with material. She composes the palettes and designs the custom furniture.
Yacouba Sow
Head of research & materialsA materials engineer, he runs the studio's in-house lab: stabilised-earth testing, instrumentation of completed buildings, publication of results.
Have a project in mind?
Let’s talk. We work with private owners, hotels, developers and institutions — from first sketch to handover.